About eleven years ago I decided to return to school to work on fulfilling some required classes that I just gave up on. I left art school in 1984 with a 
1.58 GPA due to my non-adherence to anything resembling authority, discipline,or wisdom as I was 20-years-old and had all the answers to the world’s problems figured out. I still am two classes from getting even an Associate’s degree, so let it be known that there are definitely alternatives to college in this world.
One of the required picks I chose was “Fundamentals of Communication”. This was a very dry class that focused on how others perceive us, how we perceive others, and just generally how we communicate with one another on a personal, professional, and even commercial level.
One function that was a common occurrence in this class was standing up and delivering some type of verbal presentation. Now, I know that they say that public speaking is one of the biggest fears people harbor, but you are dealing with someone who has stood up and sang songs in front of a bar full of bikers, so public speaking to me is as frightening as a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.
One particularly in-depth assignment we were given was a major contributer to our final grade in the class. We were given plenty of time to write and prepare for the presentations, and in order to be fair about the order in which they would be presented, every student was to draw a number out of a hat, and the presentations would be given in the order they were drawn over a span of two class periods.
So after weeks of preparation the day finally arrived that these demonstrative speeches were to begin. I guess I should back up and fill you in on the logistics of this drawing-the-numbers-out-of-the-hat procedure, because it is important here.
There were probably 21 kids in this class total, and I had drawn the number 17. One would easily and understandably surmise that I would be giving my presentation on day number two.
So the day finally comes when these presentations were to begin, and right away the first student that was supposed to give theirs’ had not finished the assignment, and thus, could not give it. So the teacher asked for number two to give theirs. Same thing – Not ready yet.
Apparently, the level of discipline in kids aged 19 and slightly older must just be lame across the board, no matter in which decade they reach college age.
There were a couple that managed to give their speeches. They had a host of props with them in order to make their presentations more illustrative, right? – Charts, overhead projector transparencies, pictures spray mounted on poster board, etc… I am making the point here that there was a need to bring a few things the day we assumed we would be giving our presentations on.
The teacher was visibly upset, and after the kids who were able and prepared gave their speeches on day one of the event, the teacher decided that anyone who was not prepared on that first day would receive a failing grade.
“Hold on a minute”, I piped up. “We picked numbers out of a hat, did we not”?
“Yes”, the teacher said.
“Then why is it not sensible that anyone who picked a number on the high side, assume that their speech would not be required to be given until the second day of the presentations then?” The kids were listening intently to me. They realized I had caught her changing the goal post.
“Yeah” they started piping in at her.
“What kind of a message are you sending to these kids when you set up a system of rules and then change them mid-stream?”
“Yeah!” The class was getting venomous now. I had managed to stir up some good old fashioned unequivocated mutiny in the classroom. A skill that I would have had no prayer of achieving as a 20-year-old drug addled art student twenty years prior. It felt great!
But then the tears started running and the teacher had her feelings hurt. I felt bad about this, but I still made sure that she was not going to hang the sword of Damocles over the heads of these kids.
I liked this particular instructor. She was always smiling and charming. She had glasses, a head of thick curly black hair, a rotund but feminine form, and was like four-foot eleven. At one point earlier in the term, she asked if anyone could guess what her ethnic heritage was. I put my hand up and immediately said “Lebanese”. She looked so shocked. She asked how I had guessed, and I told her that she reminded me so much of an artist friend I had from high school. She could pass as this teacher’s sister, and even had the same mannerisms, and after I heard the teacher describe what her family get togethers were like, I was pretty confident in guessing Lebanese. So it wasn’t like there was any animosity between us at all up to that point in the class, and perhaps that is why she took the mutiny thing so hard.
I had no choice but to wait for the rest of the kids to clear out of the room while I sat there in my chair. I looked at her with a bit of regret in my eyes, and she took a seat right in front of me. I knew that we had both already recovered from the episode.
I smiled and began, “I’m sorry I made you cry, BUT”…